What does one think about on a 375-mile bicycle ride?

This question was posed to me about a week before embarking on the Oregon Randonneurs Summer 600km brevet. And for the first half of the ride (18 hours), I spent time thinking about what I was thinking about.

It occurred to me that a cyclist could make significant headway into authoring a novel if he/she was properly wired to a dictaphone-type machine. The inspiring scenery coupled with the constant churning of legs allows one to reflect on a lot of life experiences, which can metamorphose into phases, sentences, and even paragraphs (in the rider's head). Could these narratives become interesting to anyone else? Hmmm.

On other rides, I've dissected many life decisions. I've catalogued most of the things I would do differently ... let's say within about the last 30 years ... if given the opportunity. Kinda like practicing extended solo psychiatry.

But on this ride, I created a blog. Not a blog entry about the brevet (that’ll come later), but a blog itself. What will it look like? What should I name it?

After many hours in the saddle, I came up with “rändo adagio.” With the obvious nod to long-distance cycling, the added umlaut is meant to encourage a pronunciation closer “rondo,” which relates to my previous life as a musician. “Adagio” reflects my natural gait as a cyclist (relative to other cyclists), be it at the velodrome, doing cyclocross, road racing (ha ha), or randonneuring. (I usually lose sight of other cyclists after the first turn or mile of whatever event.) The irony here is that the rondo form in music is generally known for its brisk character.

Randonneuring is a very conducive to journal writing, methinks, hence the many "blogified" brevets on the internet. Ironically, I stopped blogging soon after I started cycling over 3 years ago.

But I do like journalizing. And with the just-finished epic 600K on my brain (and the pain still in my legs), my re-entry into blogville commences.